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Principle of Utility to Say That We Are Morally Obligated to Perform That

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Principle of Utility to Say That We Are Morally Obligated to Perform That The Journal of Value Inquiry 20:125-136 (1986). @ t gA0 Martinus Niihoff Publishers, Dordrecht. Printed in the Netherlands. THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY AND MILL'S MINIMIZING UTILITARIANISM * REM B. EDWARDS Department of Philosophy, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996 I t, I In contemporary moral philosophy, there is considerable confusion not only about what John Stuart Mill meant by the Principle of Utiiity but also about the position which the Principle occupies in his moral philosophy. Many interpreters regard Mill as an act utilitarian whose Principle of Utility was identical with a qualitatively hedonisticl version of the first principle of act utilitarianism which affirms that we are morally obligated to perform that relevant individual act which is most like- ly to have the best consequences for all persons or sentient beings affected by the act.2 Others regard him as a quaiitativeiy hedonistic rule utilitarian and take his Principle of Utility to say that we are morally obligated to perform that relevant act which falls under a general rule, universal obedience to which would have the best consequences for all persons or sentient beings affected.3 As a qualitative hedonist, Mill equated intrinsically good consequences with happiness, defined as "an existence exempt as far as possibie from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoy- ments, both in point of quantity and quality."4 We are thus repeatedly informed that Mill's ultimate moral principle, the Principle of Utility itself, is that we are morally bound both to maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness either through each individual act that we perform or through the societal adoption and enforcement of general rules or behavior which would maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness for the greatest possible numbers if everyone acted on the rules. I hope to show that Mill offers us a third form of utilitarianism which I shall call minimizing utilitarianism. There are many things wrong with attempts to construe Mill as being either an act or a rule utilitarian. Both positions are maximizing utilitarianisms which main- tain that we are morally obligated to maximize goodness, but Mill's utilitarianism was actually a minimizing utilitarianism which claims only that we are morally obligated to abstain from inflicting harm, to actively prevent harm, to actively provide I for all persons or sentient beings certain minimal essentials of any sort of I positive well being whatsoever, such as life, liberty, security, individuality and self- I determination, food and shelter, basic education, equal opportunity to pursue "! * Writing of this article was supported by a Summer Research Grant from the University of Tennessee. 125 126 happiness, etc., and beyond that to exercise a decent minimum of charity. This minimizing utilitarianism is far superior in many ways to what often passes for "the utilitarian position" in much of the literature. Mill did not formulate or advo- cate a maximizing utilitarianism at all. The assumption that he did has been based upon a careless or incomplete reading of what Mill had to say about the Principle of Utility, both with respect to its formulation and its position in his general theory of value and morality. 1. The meaning of the Principle of Utility What did Mill mean by the Principle of Utility? Due to Mill's own carelessness about the matter, there is no simple answer and thus no simple identification of his ultimate normative position with act or rule utilitarianism. Mill often suggested that he accepted Jeremy Bentham's Principle of Utility.s If so, he may have been committed to the following formulation which Bentham presented rn hrs An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation: "By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action what- soever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question."6 Bentham then explained immediately that the "party" could be either a particular individual or the com- munity in general.T Bentham's Principle of Utility contained both a distinction between correct and incorrect acts and a theory of the end or the good consequent upon acts - approved acts are those which promote the end of happiness, dis- approved acts are those which diminish happiness. When we examine Mill's own characterizations of the Principle of Utility, which he frequently calls "the greatest happiness principle," it is by no means clear what he means by this. Definition I below, perhaps the most influential of Mill's formu- lations, seems to be very close to Bentham's containing both a reference to correct versus incorrect acts and a reference to the intrinsic good of happiness, but Defini- tions II through IV below have been interpreted to equate the Principle of Utility strictly with the ideal that happiness is the only thing desirable as an end in itself. Definition 1: The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals "utili-, ty" or the "greatest happiness principle" holds that actions are right in pro- portion as they tend to produce happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.E Definition /1: For instance, the principle of utility, - the doctrine that all things are good or evil, by virtue solely of the pleasure or the pain which they produce, - is as broadly stated, and as emphatically maintained against Pro- tagoras by Socrates, in the dialogue, as it ever was by Epicurus or Bentham.e Definition III: The utiiitarian doctrine is that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable as an end; all other things being only desirable as a means to that end.lo 127 Definition IV: lt (the Principle of Utility) *uy be more correctly de- scribed as supposing that equal amounts of happiness are equally desirable, whether felt by the same or different persons. This, however, is not a pre- supposition, not a premise needful to support the principle of utility, but the very principle itself ; for what is the principle of utility if it be not that "hap- piness" and "desirable" are synonymous terms?11 DeJinition Z: I merely declare my conviction, that the general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform, and the test by which they should be tried, is that of conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather, of all sentient beings: in other words, that the promotion of happiness is the ultimate principle of Teleology.r2 Two of Mill's most astute recent interpreters, D.G. Brown and David Lyons, have insisted that Miil's Principle of Utility is merely a theory of the good and not a theory of desirable action or obligation at all. Brown found at least fifteen dif- ferent wordings of the Principle of Utility in Mill's writings which Mill apparently regarded as equivalent.13 He insisted that they all reduce to the idea that "Happi- ness is the only thing desirable as an end."14 Similarly, David Lyons, who relies too uncritically I think on Brown's work, has recently advanced the view that Mill's "Principle of Utility says that happiness is the ultimate good, and thus it represents a theory of value - not of obligation."ls Elsewhere, Lyons admitted that the Principle could at least be used to rank actions with respect to desirability,l6 but he sees this ranking function as extraneous to the meaning of the Principle itself. It is tempting to agree with the Brown/Lyons thesis that the Principle of Utility as such did not incorporate a distinction between correct versus incorrect action at all, for if they are right it is at once apparent that neither a maximizing act or rule utilitarianism is identical with Mill's Principle of Utility since both in- volve normative theories of moral action. I am convinced, however, by the fol- lowing reasons that the Principle did contain some sort of prescriptive element in its very conception, despite what Brown and Lyons have to say. In the first place, as in Definition I, Mill frequently referred to the Principle of Utility as the "greatest happiness principle." Mill got it from Bentham, who got it from Helvetius and/or Hume,l7 who got it from older thinkers in the Moral Sense tradition of Scottish moral philosophy. As this principle was introduced into modern ethical theory by Francis Hutcheson, it clearly contained an action- guiding element: "...that Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers: and that, worst, which, in like manner, occasions Mise- rY,"rE The Principle had changed little by the time it got to Bentham. In a later footnote to his own definition of the Principle of Utility quoted above, Bentham himself defined the greatest happiness principle as follows: This for shortness, instead of saying at length that principle whichstates the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question, as being the right and proper, and only right and proper and univerially deiirabie, Jnd of f,u- 128 man action: of human action in every situation, and in particular in that of a functionary or set of functionaries exercising the powers^of government:1e Thus, the utiiitarian tradition to which Mill belonged clearly meant more by the greatest happiness principle than that happiness is the sole intrinsic good. It meant also that desirable actions are those which promote happiness and that undesirable actions are those which reduce happiness or permit or produce unhappiness. More decisively, however, Mill's Definitions II and III above both contain references to the meons of happiness, and Mill repeatedly insisted that certain kinds of human actions are effective means to that end.
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